Friday, July 31, 2015

Of Badges and Blasphemy

... but the police demand your worship.

Sheriff
Doug Rader of Missouri's Stone County complains that he is being“attacked” for a “patriotic gesture” – decorating his
department's patrol vehicles with the motto “In God We Trust.” By
focusing on a largely symbolic controversy, both the sheriff's
defenders and detractors are ignoring a more tangible threat – the
sheriff's insistence, typical of his profession, that citizens render
immediate, unconditional obedience to law enforcement officers as
duly appointed ministers of violence on behalf of the divine State.

“Where's
our patriotism?” Sheriff Rader theatrically protested during a
recent interview on Fox News. “Anytime anybody wants to be
patriotic and make a symbol nowadays, they're attacked.... We've come
so far from 9/11, it just saddens me.”

Rader
is correct in pointing out that many other law enforcement agencies
display the phrase – which is the official national motto – on
their vehicles. As legal commentator and retired Judge Andrew
Napolitano points
out, this practice is in compliance with Supreme Court
precedents, even though it does prompt objections from proponents of
strict separation of church and state (including some believers
offended by the profanation of faith through association with the
monstrosity called the state).

A more troublesome expression
of the worldview that governs Sheriff Rader's department is found on
its official website. Prominently displayed on the introductory page
is an inventive paraphrase of the familiar (and widely misapplied)
verse from chapter 13 of the New Testament's Book of Romans:

“For
the `Policeman' does not frighten people who are doing right; but
those who doing [sic] evil will always fear him. So if you do not
want to be afraid, keep the laws and you will get along well. The
`Policeman' is sent by God to help you. But if you are doing
something wrong, of course you should be afraid, for he will have you
punished. He is sent by God for that very purpose.”

Jessica
White, her husband Jordan, and her father-in-law Donny can testify
that it isn't necessary to be “doing something wrong” to find
oneself on the receiving end of state-consecrated violence inflicted
by Stone County Sheriff's deputies. Each of them is completing a
three-year term of probation on charges arising from a May 5, 2012
incident in which they were beaten and arrested by deputies who had
invaded their property without a warrant or probable cause.

The
Whites, who live in Crane, Missouri, were returning from a basketball
game when they saw that their driveway was blocked by deputies
carrying out a traffic stop on a suspected drunk driver. They were
allowed to walk up a forty-yard driveway to the carport, but ordered
not to go into the house. Although they were not suspects, they were
detained in the interest of that most important of all
considerations, “officer safety.”

A
few minutes later, two more deputies – Taylor Jenkins and Brandon
Flack – arrived on the scene with a police dog. Without a warrant,
probable cause, or consent, Jenkins and Flack swaggered onto the
property to interrogate the Whites. Understandably, things
degenerated very rapidly.

“Also
a female from the residence who was watching the incident … walked
up behind one of the deputies and struck the deputy in the back of
the head,” continued the official account. “She was then arrested
for Assaulting a Law Enforcement Officer.”

Given
that this statement was issued by a law enforcement agency, it isn't
surprising that it is severely at variance with the facts, which were
captured on video by at least two witnesses.

The
SCSO statement conveys the impression that the Whites were trying to
impede the arrest of the detained motorist, Thomas Barnett, who was
the subject of a municipal warrant. The video documents that Jordan
and Donny White became agitated by the uninvited and unwarranted
intrusion of Deputies Jenkins and Flack and their weaponized canine.

Without
cause or explanation, Jordan was thrown to the ground by the deputy,
and then kicked in the genitals. After Donny loudly protested the
assault on his son, Flack bellowed: “Get him, Jenkins!”

Seizing
Donny, Deputy Jenkins snarled, “Get on the f**king ground!” and
threw the man face-down on the cement carport surface.

Jessica,
who at the time was an elected alderwoman in Crane, had been trying
to reason with the deputies, only to receive vulgar verbal abuse in
return. After seeing her husband and father-in-law brutalized without
provocation, the small, petite woman intervened directly, striking at
Jenkins in a desperate attempt to defend Donny. Flack grabbed Jessica
and thrust her to the ground, wounding her leg and inflicting severe,
lasting damage to her shoulder in the process. Neighbors looked on in
horror as the deputies – acting in violation of use-of-force
guidelines – used a Taser to inflict several prolonged
“drive-stuns” on Donny, who was prone and handcuffed.

After
the Sheriff's Office issued its disinformation-laden press release
about the incident,the
White family's attorney, John Dale Wiley, provided a detailed account
of the officers' abusive behavior to the Springfield News Leader. He
also made public a video of the arrests. Two weeks later, deputies
Jenkins and Flack responded by filing a lawsuit against the Whites
and their attorney. The officers claimed that by exercising the
right to publicize abuses and seek redress of grievances, the Whites
had subjected their assailants to “defamation.”

The
lawsuit accused Wiley of “intentionally, willfully, and maliciously
distributing” defamatory statements through the media, and claimed
that the Whites were “vicariously liable for the actions and
conduct of their agent, servant, employee, and attorney,” who
supposedly acted “in the reckless disregard of the rights of [the
plaintiffs] to be free from being the victim of defamatory
statements.”

Both
Jenkins and Flack complained that as a result of the publicity they
were “subjected to contempt and ridicule, and … suffered
emotional distress, pain, and suffering.”

As
Wiley pointed out, the injuries inflicted by the deputies were rather
more severe than the hurt feelings they supposedly experienced.

"Donny White [was] subjected to a vicious prolonged
Taser attack, despite being handcuffed and being face down on the
ground,” declared the attorney. “The deputy [continued] his
sadistic torture ignoring Donny's cries begging the deputy to stop."
Eyewitness Levi Cook testified that the deputies kicked the shackled,
helpless man in the face, leaving behind “a big pile of blood.”

Attorney
Richard Crites, who represented Jenkins and Flack, insisted that the
assailants were merely carrying out their divine mandate. Reciting
from the catechism of Blue Privilege, Crites maintained that Ms.
White had a moral obligation to submit to whatever her costumed
superiors saw fit to inflict on her and her family: “She reacted
because she was drunk. Alcohol and stupidity go like bacon and
eggs.... I don't care what Dale Wiley says, you don't have an excuse
to go up and hit somebody in the head that's a cop.”
(Emphasis added.)

Committing
aggressive violence is the priestly prerogative of the police
officer. Protecting one's self or a loved one from such violence is
an impermissible sacrilege.

Because
they had defied commands issued by their heaven-ordained supervisors
– and, in Jessica's case, profaned the consecrated body of a divine
emissary by coming to the aid of her father-in-law – the Whites
were compelled to accept “Alford pleas” for charges including
third-degree assault on an officer and resisting or interfering with
an arrest. In September 2013 they were sentenced to two years ofunsupervised probation.

The
incident involving the Whites occurred prior to Doug Rader's election
as Stone County Sheriff. Neither Jenkins nor Flack is listed on the
department's current personnel roster.

One
of Rader's first gestures in office was to issue a statement
promising Stone County residents that he would protect them against a
hypothetical gun-grab by the Obama administration.

Like the
decision to place the motto “In God We Trust” on patrol vehicles,
that promise was a facile symbolic gesture. He has yet to provide
substantive assurances to Stone County residents that he will protect
them from the proven threat of criminal violence on the part of his
subordinates.

Scott
Boyler, a resident of Evans, New York, is a low-level registered sex
offender who was convicted of attempting to receive child
pornography. He was recently arrested and jailed for several days not
for something he had received, but rather something he had posted
online – comments critical of the local police in a website
entitled “Lackawanna Police Corruption.” One
of Boyler’s recent posts described an illegal cell phone search
conducted by an officer he identified as “Joseph `Pig Face’ Leo.”
Leo filed a complaint against Boyler, who was arrested for
“aggravated harassment.” That charge was quickly dismissed, as
the officer most likely knew it would be. But it did lead to Boyler
being incarcerated for several days as summary punishment for lese
majeste.
which was the objective. Boyler has filed a $1.25 million lawsuit.

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. -Sinclair Lewis

It saddens me deeply to see that so many American Christians hold to a divine right of kings interpretation of Romans 13, an interpretation that when applied falls into a great deal of conflict with the rest of Scripture.